Rice Farming on a School Trip

Two days ago, four of us teachers went on a school trip to a farm called Ban Kru Thani, an hour or so outside of Bangkok. Two teachers were already there, having been selected for the overnight camp, but myself and one other went for the day. By 7am we were on a bus full of children on the way to the farm.

Firstly, we were asked to entertain the students on the bus. Begrudgingly – we both tend to suffer from travel sickness and were a bit apprehensive about standing and entertaining on a moving vehicle – we took it in turns to teach new vocabulary (words that might be useful on a farm) and indicate how they were to fill in their worksheets. To be completely honest, that was a challenge in itself. Does anybody know the difference between a sickle and a scythe? Neither did I.

When we arrived, we met the others, played a few games in English and sang some songs to get everyone excited for the day ahead. Even in the shade at 8.30am it was extremely hot and it dawned on us quite how hot it was going to be out in the sun all day. We were encouraged to take off our shoes in order to really experience the farm how it’s experienced everyday by Thai farmers. As nice as that sounded at the time, we all regretted having left our shoes behind when we realised how hot the floor was under our feet!

Once we had split the group into smaller and more manageable teams, we then went to pay our respects to Buddha and the farm. Not really understanding what we were doing or why, we followed the farmers to a room containing a shrine and paid our respects, after which we listened to a talk about the history of the farm and architecture of the building. Of course this talk was in Thai, and we understood very little! So many times as an English teacher have I been thrown into a situation with almost no knowledge of what’s happening or why, and this was another one of those times.

Shortly after, each group was taken to a different area of the farm where we all took part in different tasks, and then moved onto the next. We rode in a tractor, rode a cart pulled by a buffalo, collected eggs, climbed a tree on a bamboo ladder, sat on a buffalo, helped to prepare a rice dessert, fed some fish, kayaked a little (very difficult to do when the students on your boat don’t understand the difference between left and right – I lost count of how many times we crashed into the bushes!), shimmied across the bamboo bridge suspended across the lake (it’s not an exaggeration when I say it was like a bamboo tightrope that was so hot to stand on it hurt the underside of your feet), and finally helped prepare the omelette for lunch.

We all sat down in our groups to enjoy our traditional Thai lunch. Again we paid our respects, and tucked in. There was Thai omelette, chicken and pork, soup, som tam (spicy papaya salad with prawns), green curry with chicken, and of course lots and lots of rice.

Next we were told to change into the clothes we were happy to get dirty and make our way over to the rice fields. We were to plant rice in the mud. Slowly my students and I – all aged between 6 and 11 – waded into the thigh-deep water to find that we sunk to our knees in slimy mud! Some of my students were holding onto me for support, though that made it harder for me not to fall over! Once we were all over the initial shock of the mud, we had a great time – splashing around in the water and painting each other with the mud. After, we got hosed down and it felt like it was songkran festival all over again! We all had a great laugh but were very happy when we were told it was time to shower. We all queued up for our showers – I didn’t know it took little girls so long to shower! – and waited our turns. What a relief it was to finally wash all of the mud off!

Once we were all clean and changed, we were served some Thai desserts – banana fritters, and an ice puppy-esque, grape flavoured treat. Finally, it was the last activity of the day – thanking the staff at the farm, and giving out the rewards. We awarded 5 students special prizes for participation and excellent use of English during the day. Some students told us their favourite parts of the day, and then we were ready to get back on the bus and go home to Bangkok.

Finally back in Bangkok, we went out for a well-deserved pizza, followed by an inevitable early night!